What are the sex and gender considerations in concussion research? Could ketogenic diets (KDs) be used to therapeutically treat glioma patients? What are the benefits of Tai Chi for fibromyalgia? These are just some of the captivating questions that these articles answer.

Future Neurology

Author: Rachel Jenkins

Let’s begin 2018’s top content with Future Neurology’s most read article, which was an editorial piece entitled, ‘The burden of oncology promises not kept in glioblastoma’ [1]. The paper was authored by Alba Brandes and colleagues from the IRCCS Institute of Neurological Sciences (Bologna, Italy), who discuss the challenges faced in glioblastoma and how immune-oncology still has a bigger role to play in treating the disease.

Another article that proved popular with our readers was an exciting research article investigating whether ‘Prehospital notification can effectively reduce in-hospital delay for thrombolysis in acute stroke’. This paper aimed to reduce in-hospital intervals for thrombolysis in acute stroke by developing a prehospital notification protocol that directly notifies a neurologist to prepare for possible treatment [2].

A second editorial that generated a lot of interest was authored by Michael Motes who discussed whether or not cognitive training was able to improve brain functioning with increasing age [3]. Our final paper in the collection is a review entitled, ‘Role of FABP3 as biomarker in Alzheimer’s disease and synucleinopathies’ [4]. This article described recent progresses in characterizing the role of FABP3 in neurodegeneration and its putative role as a measurable biomarker in biological fluids.

That concludes Future Neurology’s top picks of 2018, which has been another exciting year for the journal with the continued publication of timely, high-quality manuscripts and the launch of a fully open access model for 2019. For more information on this, or if you are interested in submitting to Future Neurology, please click here.

Concussion

Author: Hannah Wilson

In this round-up we will bring you some highlights from Volume 3 of Concussion.

We would also like to take this opportunity to thank all of our valued editorial board members, readers, authors and peer reviewers for their continued support; we very much look forward to seeing the journal progress and develop over the next 12 months.

Content highlights

The table below shows our top three most-read content pieces from 2018 (correct at the time of writing).

In our most-read piece from 2018 [5], the authors reviewed findings from studies on sex differences in the epidemiology of concussion and clinical manifestations of mild traumatic brain injury/concussion. This article was also found to be our most shared of 2018 via tracking on the Altmetric platform, suggesting that social media sharing has a direct impact on reader traffic.

Reader demographics

In 2018, 78% of reader traffic across all Concussion content came from North America. The next largest share was attributed to the UK at just 4%. This striking figure reflects the dominance of the USA and Canada in the concussion research field.

While we expect this dominance to continue for some years, there is evidence that the attention being paid to concussion as a medical priority is spreading further afield. In November, Concussion published an article entitled, ‘Concussion knowledge among family physicians in Croatia’ [6]. The study, conducted in preparation for the First Croatian Conference on Sports Related Brain Injury (15–17 June 2017, Split, Croatia), highlighted inaccuracies in knowledge of concussion diagnosis, treatment, recovery and prognosis among family physicians. Whether this represents the first step in an increase in readers (and in turn authors) from the region is yet to be seen.

Indexing

In June 2018, Concussion was accepted for indexing on the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). The DOAJ is a community-curated indexing service that focuses on quality, peer-reviewed, open access titles and we thank the team for their help during the application process.

In September, Concussion was accepted for indexing on PubMedCentral. This mark of quality means that all content is now searchable on PubMed, serving to increase visibility and readers.

Stay in touch

You can access all Concussion content open access via our website or via your Neuro Central account. Stay up-to-date with our latest content on Twitter @fsgconcussion and if you are interested in submitting to the journal check out our Author Information.

CNS Oncology

Author: Tristan Free

2018 has been an interesting year for CNS Oncology, with the majority of hard-hitting papers concerning the validation and testing of novel therapeutics, in a field in desperate need of a new and vastly more effective standard of care. Here we present three of the most impactful and well-read papers published in the journal.

Ketogenic diets as a therapeutic treatment for glioma

The most read paper in CNS oncology in 2018 was a systematic review that put to test the theory that KDs could be used to therapeutically treat glioma patients, based on the Warburg theory that postulates that KDs change tumor cells’ energy source from glucose to ketones resulting in cell death [7].

During the data search, the authors found that the only study types available for review were case studies and series, the lowest type of studies in the evidence hierarchy. While analysis of the meta-data showed that KDs resulted in minimal adverse events and were considered safe, the study was unable to conclude that they were of therapeutic benefit, highlighting the need for high-quality research into the potential of KDs as a therapeutic adjuvant.

Treating glioblastoma multiform with D,L-methadone

Next in line was an in vitro study that tested the efficacy of D,L-methadone in the treatment of glioblastoma multiform (GBM) [8]. D,L-methadone had recently been postulated as an effective additional adjuvant therapy for GBM. Cells from four resected tumors of separate patients were used to establish molecularly well-categorized cell lines, in addition to two established GBM cell lines, in order to account for the inherent heterogeneity found in GBM tumors.

The authors found that at concentrations of D,L-methadone achievable in the interstitial space surrounding a GBM tumor had no positive effect, either alone or in combination with temozolomide, with one cell line actually increasing its viability in response to the dose. In fact, apoptosis only occurred at levels that, due to the pharmacokinetics of D,L-methadone and of crossing the blood–brain barrier, would require an intolerably high initial dose. This study highlighted the need for caution in further testing of D,L-methadone as an adjuvant treatment of GBM.

Clinical importance of eflornithine for malignant gliomas

A review article that was of particular interest to our readers was the ‘Clinical importance of eflornithine (α-difluoromethylornithine) for the treatment of malignant gliomas’ [9], which explored the literature from 1989 to 2007 regarding the drug, which is currently not approved by the US FDA for use in anti-cancer therapies.

Addressing the change in categorization of neural tumors to postulate that as many as 15% of tumors originally labelled as anaplastic astrocytoma may, in fact, have been GBM tumors and exploring data collected a significant amount of time after the conclusion of the original studies published in the time frame, the authors make a compelling argument for the consideration of eflorinithine as an alternative therapeutic agent for gliomas.

Pain Management

Author: Alice Bough

In 2018, Pain Management’s most read article included a review on ‘Pharmacokinetic properties of intranasal and injectable formulations of naloxone for community use: a systematic review’. This paper featured researchers from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine (OH, USA) and Wayne State University School of Medicine (MI, USA) [10].

Second on our list of most popular articles was another review on a similar subject, titled, ‘Prescribing naloxone for opioid overdose intervention’. Both review articles discussed the importance of naloxone in the emergency treatment of opioid overdose [10, 11]. Additionally, both papers achieved the highest Altmetric scores of all articles in Pain Management in 2018: 329 and 310, respectively.

Our most read editorial included an article on ‘Prioritizing pediatric chronic pain and comprehensive pain treatment in the context of the opioid epidemic’. Highlighting the problems associated with pediatric chronic pain, the authors explained that a lack of education about its management is perpetuating the need for treatment of opioid abuse [12].

We always try to balance the content of our journal to cover a variety of pharmacological and non-pharmacological techniques. Indeed, another one of our most read editorials was an article entitled, ‘Benefits of Tai Chi for fibromyalgia’. The authors described the struggles for patients living with fibromyalgia and explained the benefits Tai Chi can have on their health [13].

That concludes Pain Management’s top content of 2018, and we look forward to publishing more great quality manuscripts as we move into 2019. For more information on or if you are interested in submitting to Pain Management, please click here.

Neurodegenerative Disease Management

Authors: Laura Dormer

The most read article of 2018 (at the time of writing) includes a case report, which discusses the difficult topic of suicide in early-onset Alzheimer’s disease [14]. Within the article, the authors concluded that: “For clinicians who treat and evaluate patients with neurodegenerative disorders, safety and risk assessment must become integral components of ongoing care.”

The last year has also seen interviews to be particularly popular with our readers, as four articles in our top ten are interviews with experts in their field [15–18]. These interviews were conducted following the ECTRIMS–ACTRIMS conference in October 2017, and highlighted key research presented by leading experts.

Editorials have also proved popular in 2018, with Pedro J Modrego discussing the unmet needs in the management of myasthenia gravis in the June issue [19]. Going further back to January, Popugaeva and Bezprozvanny discussed STIM proteins as regulators of neuronal store-operated calcium influx [20].

With regards to original research articles, the most popular from 2018 came from Ogino et al. [21] and Fackrell et al. [22]. In medical research, real-world data is increasingly being used, and in the first article the authors used real-world data from a Japanese health insurance claims database in order to investigate the treatment, comorbidities and prevalence of multiple sclerosis in an employed Japanese population. The second article saw authors investigate the neglected area of respiratory function decline in Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

A special report rounds out the top ten from Neurodegenerative Disease Management, in which authors present a clinical consensus outlining practical considerations for managing motor fluctuations in people with Parkinson’s disease that complement current national guidelines from NICE (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) and SIGN (Scotland) [23].

And that’s it for the top picks from our partnered journals in 2018! All the journal articles are free to read for Neuro Central members, so if you are interested in any of the topics mentioned above, please log in or register and click through to read the full articles below.